39 hours
by niewypowiedziane
Summary: The Avengers stay in Stark Tower for 39 hours after the Chitauri attack and Tony is not himself. Rhodey notices because he is Tony's best friend, and he knows exactly what to do.


**39 hours**

The night after the attack the Avengers are staying in Stark Tower as it's simply too difficult to try to arrange something else with everything that's going on. Tony invites them. There's enough space in the undamaged areas below, even if it means sleeping on mattresses on the floor.

Pepper tries to make him go down there too, but Tony refuses.

She goes to sleep by herself.

Tony sits in the middle of the penthouse, among the rubble and the broken glass. The floor feels cold under his bare feet. Everything smells like dust, just like he's always imagines ancient battles would smell. Dust would fill people's throats and lungs and make their breaths heavy, boy-Tony imagined, and that's how his own chest feels now. Heavy. Heavier than it's felt for years, even after Afghanistan.

Despite the darkness and the silence he doesn't feel sleepy at all. There are voices and sounds inside his head, replaying endlessly, making him feel dizzy. The bright night sky over the city seems to be an opposite of what Tony saw on the other side of the wormhole, and now he can't stop marveling at how amazing the universe is.

How pointless is everything that is going on around on the surface of the earth, with Tony amidst.

He sits unmoving, legs crossed, until they start to hurt. He sweeps some glass pieces away with his hand and lays down, feeling the floor's marble pieces under his back. There is a cut on his hand, or maybe a few little ones, so he absentmindedly licks the blood off his skin and then wipes the hand on his pants; they are all dusty anyway.

The sunrise comes early, before four. The sky is perfectly clear and sun's warm pink rays bathe the city in an unreal and ethereal glow.

'I'm scared,' Tony says, the words thick, at some point when the sun is climbing up, changing the color of the sky into yellowish and then blue.

'It's understandable,' JARVIS replies softly.

'I don't want to be scared,' Tony adds, closing his eyes. Sleep won't come.

'You made a visit to a different world, literally, sir. You would be a fool not to be scared.'

Tony laughs. He's still lying on his back so his ribs around the arc reactor hurt, but he's skilled at ignoring that.

Then he laughs and laughs and laughs until he can't breathe because they are alive and he is alive – he shouldn't be. And it's the second time.

A few minutes later he takes a deep breath, letting the dust settle in his lungs, and gets up slowly.

* * *

'Tony,' he hears someone call his name and the voice makes him turn around sharply, feeling every sore muscles of his body. He wasn't even hoping for this so soon.

'Honeybear,' he greets Rhodey with a small smile. Rhodey nods at him and looks around at the destruction of the penthouse, the rubble, the hole in the floor, the broken glass that lets the wind get inside and make the dust dance in the air.

'So what, you think you'll just sit in here all day?' Rhodey asks, walking up to the sofa Tony is seated on now.

It must be after ten already.

Tony locked everyone out from the penthouse, but he didn't take Rhodey into consideration because the colonel was somewhere in the Midwest the previous day. Tony smiles apologetically and Rhodey shakes his head slowly.

'You know what this reminds me of? This reminds me of that one time I had to help you to your desk because you couldn't walk those ten steps by yourself. You don't look much better now.'

'Thanks for the compliment,' Tony tries to make his voice sound chipper and annoying, but he's too tired for that. He didn't really get any sleep this or the previous night and he doesn't know how to relax.

There's warm air all around, remotely scented like blossoming flowers, brought from the ground level, and pleasant sunrays filling the space around him, but it's difficult to shake off the cold that seems to be residing inside his bones.

'You and your games,' Rhodey comments, sounding annoyed and affectionate at the same time. 'Scoot over.'

Tony moves a bit, making place for Rhodey to sit down. Moving feels so unnatural.

'I met Pepper and Happy downstairs – they said you're having your rag-tag superheroes staying over.'

'Just for a day or so, platypus,' Tony teases, adjusting to the heat of another body so close to his, giving him almost a burning feeling.

'I want you to introduce me, okay?'

'Sure,' Tony agrees, and then silence falls between them. Rhodey makes this slightest movement as if he was going to turn around and start talking a few times, but in the end he says nothing. Tony doesn't mind. His head is still ringing with panicked shouts that accompanied him most of the time yesterday, like a perfect orchestra.

The silence stretches like honey, thick and warm, and the sun keeps moving between the skyscrapers visible from the tower slowly, lazily, the way it always does. The same sun that has always been there, Tony knows, one of millions or billions stars of the universe, only a closer one.

That's the only unique thing about this world, Tony thinks, that he cares about it personally. There are people he likes to sit in silence with here – and nowhere else.

He could've been stuck there, in space, alone, so easily. In the cold, undisturbed, eternal blackness, no matter how pretty.

Very lonely and very deadly.

'Tony?' he hears Rhodey's concerned voice, somewhere behind the wall of white noise he can't stop remembering – the noise of rushing up, the air kissing his armor, the buzz in his head. 'Tony, breathe,' Rhodey adds, putting a hand on Tony's arm that feels remotely painful and Tony jerks away from the touch. It takes him a long moment to open his eyes, only to see Rhodey's frowning face in front of him. 'Why doesn't it surprise me you didn't get medical attention?'

'I'm just –' Tony tries, but he just doesn't feel like explaining, so he turns his face away and lets his hands rest in his lap limply.

'I think what you need is a long warm bath,' Rhodey says, but he doesn't move. 'Okay?'

He's always been doing that: asking Tony instead of ordering him around, when he knows Tony's not good.

It doesn't happen often, but there have been times.

Rhodey apologized about hundred times for what he said to Tony after Afghanistan, telling him to take some time off to get his mind right. Tony never held a grudge because he understood it perfectly. Rhodey kept apologizing anyway.

'Okay,' Tony agrees and stands up slowly.

Rhodey helps him to the bathroom, they take slow, sure steps, watching out not to step on something sharp. Then he helps Tony undress, just as JARVIS fills the bath with pleasantly warm water. It's all done in complete silence, only soft noises of the water and rustling clothes echo in the bathroom softly.

Tony stays in the water for almost half an hour, until his muscles feel completely relaxed and his skin is all wrinkled. He falls asleep for few moments but it's much too short to make him feel any better. Rhodey sits next to him all this time and Tony's thankful for hearing someone else's steady breathes.

'Thanks, J,' Tony says when he finally feels stronger and fresher, and JARVIS brings the temperature of the room up a few degrees within a short moment. Rhodey handles Tony a bathrobe and his underwear, it takes Tony a long moment to coordinate his tangling limbs, but when he's finished, Rhodey tells him to sit on a stool.

'I'll clean up your cuts,' he states, not asking for permission, and Tony lets him.

It's hard not to flinch away from Rhodey's touch, but Tony does a good job, and fifteen minutes later he's covered with butterfly bandage and bruise cream.

'I'm not offering you painkillers until you've eaten something –'

'We ate shawarma yesterday after the battle,' Tony offers, thought it was a long time ago.

'You could've eaten two pounds of steak for all I care,' Rhodey scoffs, watching Tony putting on a t-shirt and a pair of cotton trousers.

'I believe Doctor Banner, following Miss Potts' advice, called for a delivery. Captain Rogers was surprised there wasn't anything one could make a dinner from in the tower.'

Rhodey laughs softly and gestures at Tony to go ahead.

'Why are you being so… nice to me, cupcake?' Tony asks, putting his hands in his pockets when Rhodey steps into the elevator after him.

'I'm always nice to you,' Rhodey replies, 'you're just too busy not notice sometimes.'

'Yeah, I know, sorry for that,' Tony offers quietly, because he knows Rhodey is right. He can be an ass instead of a friend too often.

'No, that's okay, I knew what I signed up for even back in MIT – you had a reputation. And actually, it can be pretty amusing sometimes,' Rhodey adds with a perfectly straight face.

Somehow, Tony finds it funny and burst out laughing, ignoring his aching ribs and back and everything. As if he's waited for Tony to do it first, Rhodey joins in instantly.

* * *

They eat. Tony is his usual cocky self, annoying Captain America, teasing everyone else and talking in a weird combination of bad jokes and science jargon that no one seems to understand completely. Pepper is not there. Rhodey keeps glancing at him worriedly.

* * *

Pepper is in the penthouse when Tony goes back there.

She doesn't mention the unanswered phone call, but she sits next to him on the sofa and cries for a long, long time, as if letting out the tension she's been hiding for years.

Tony's injuries burn from the touch of her body but he doesn't say anything.

They both get cleaned up a bit, without saying a word, when JARVIS announces that the team is meeting again, to discuss Thor and Loki's departure, and to share a meal.

Tony talks his way through the meeting and no one even comments on him not eating anything. Tomorrow at noon is the decision, S.H.I.E.L.D. can secure the area. It'll only take a moment, according to Thor. Tony hopes so.

* * *

He plays chess with Rhodey until eleven p.m. and then they both go down, only that Tony stays there for fifteen minutes before sneaking back to the penthouse. Trying to fall asleep doesn't bring any results, so Tony spends some time breathing in the destruction-scented air, right until he gets up abruptly, goes to the bathroom, throws up and quickly cleans himself up.

JARVIS checked, it's not a concussion. Or anything. He's just distracted and shaky.

And hungry.

* * *

'Sir, are you okay?' someone asks when Tony is down in the street level, walking down a street, brushing his fingers against the walls of the buildings he's passing, as if he was trying to steady himself or make sure the city is still there, still around him, still alive.

'Yeah,' he replies, thinking about all the dark bruises covering his body that he can feel with every step.

'It's just that… you're walking barefoot, sir,' the person adds and Tony looks down at his feet. He just didn't realize he's not wearing shoes, right. Strange that JARVIS didn't remind him – or maybe he did. 'Do you want me to call 911?'

'No, I'm – I'm good,' Tony tries to smile. He doesn't feel cold at all, even though he's been walking through artificially lit alleys for a few minutes now and the night is quite chilly for late May. 'Thanks,' he adds before walking away.

The city is unusually quiet, everyone hiding in their homes, trying not to look at all the destruction, trying to wipe out all the terrible things that have happened during the attack, and Tony is doing exactly the opposite. And he can't stop.

He goes back when he finally gets cold, bearing a big box in a rustling shopping bag.

* * *

'Where have you been?' a voice asks from the depth of the dark room and Tony curses himself for not asking JARVIS if anyone was on the floor.

'Out to get some donuts,' he tells Steve, taking the box out of the bag and putting it on the nearby table.

'At 2 a.m.?'

'It's New York,' Tony says as if it explained everything.

'You sound tired,' Steve comments after a long moment of silence, during which Tony eats one of the donuts and licks the icing of his fingers. It's so sweet that it's hard to swallow, but somehow Tony likes that feeling.

You sound. Makes sense, in a dark room, lit only by shaded moon and glow of shiny advertisements from below.

'Genius here, it's a package deal, brain doesn't stop as often as body requires,' Tony says and grabs another donut, leaving the rest in the box. 'Eat a fancy donut, knock yourself out, I'm going up, Capsicle,' he adds and leaves.

Steve doesn't notice on the lack of shoes, or if he does, he doesn't comment.

* * *

The second donut, half eaten, is discarded as soon as Tony gets to the penthouse. It'll be cleaned later, with everything else. It doesn't matter.

Instead, Tony pours himself a glass of good quality whiskey and takes a sip. It doesn't taste good, it tastes bitter and bland. The glass is left on the bar counter, next to the booze that Tony offered to Loki.

'JARVIS, assemble whichever suit you've got on hand and fly it here for me,' Tony asks quietly, standing motionless in the middle of the space filled with cool salt-scented air.

'As you wish,' JARVIS replies.

It takes the suit no more than two minutes to land in front of Tony, but it's enough to make him feel like a marble statue. His body is just so, so worn out.

But sleep will come, it always does. Eventually.

It did in Afghanistan and it did after Afghanistan.

Tony's had his lesson about time healing the wounds already.

'Full power, J,' he mumbles as soon as the faceplate is down. JARVIS obeys and the suit takes Tony out into the dark sky over New York within seconds. 'Let's go as high as is safe,' he commands and that's what the suit does, stopping when it reaches the end of the safe level.

The city looks almost like a thick constellation, as an incomplete galaxy from far up, Tony realizes, holding his breath. It feels so dead, though, despite the lights and the moving spots, despite knowing that there are millions of souls down there – it's just so well-known. So sickeningly safe and just boring, and Tony doesn't have the patience to handle boring right now.

It makes him sick with disappointment, thinking about life down there. People. Arguments, talks, phone calls, social media, metro trains going there and back, children, sleeping, eating, slowly dying second by second, everyone's brains decaying.

He can't see it right now, but the little blue light circle in his chest and the big one at the bottom of Stark Tower, they mean something is being done. Something is happening. The world is moving on, still, bit by bit.

But – there were stars he'll never see. JARVIS has two point six seconds of a recording, and slowed down hundred times Tony can see the sky from another part of the universe, so fascinating, so exhilarating that Tony didn't mind dying that much, staring at the nuke hitting the alien ship right until the light was too bright and he had to close his eyes, numbers and equations and physical rules, just broken, embedded under his eyelids.

'Kill the repulsors, J,' Tony hears himself saying after a few minutes of staring at the city below.

'Sir, I –'

'JARVIS,' Tony just repeats firmly. JARVIS obeys and a second later Tony is falling.

The sound of the suit cutting through the air fills Tony's head, familiar and threatening but Tony doesn't mind, his heart starts to beat faster, pumping blood through his veins furiously, making his skin feel raw and warm, making his whole body pulsate; it's hard to breathe but it's always hard to breathe – the surface of the water is getting closer and closer, dark like a black hole, dark and promising and Tony closes his eyes, letting all the other senses take over, giving in to the freefall that makes his whole body ache dully; he knows that technically it's maybe a minute but it feels like much longer –

When he closes his eyes he loses sight of the HUD control panel displayed inside his helmet and he doesn't know how far he is from the ocean, not exactly, though his brain works out the Maths and supplies him with an answer involuntarily.

JARVIS doesn't let him hit the water surface though.

Tony knew he wouldn't.

Instead, the suit suddenly slows down, filling Tony's head with sharp pain at the sudden change of the momentum, and before he can say anything he's speeding ahead horizontally, maybe two meters above the water, fresh air getting inside via the filtration system and making Tony breathe in deeply, out of habit, acquired after getting the tech-medical miracle inside his chest.

Maximize the oxygen intake, a motto of the day.

'I'm taking you home, sir,' JARVIS says quietly after a few more minutes and Tony realizes he's been lost in his thoughts again – so many things he needs to talk with Doctor Foster about, and Bruce, if they stay in touch – and that they are indeed approaching the city.

* * *

Tony wakes up when sunrays start licking his face with their strange warmth.

'You were asleep for three hours, forty minutes,' JARVIS says without being asked. Tony nods and sits up slowly, noticing that he's on the sofa in the penthouse. Sometimes Tony thinks JARVIS can read his mind.

Other times he's sure of that.

'It's seven thirteen,' JARVIS adds. 'Miss Potts is downstairs, eating breakfast with Captain Rogers and Colonel Rhodes. Perhaps you'd like to join then?'

'You know me and breakfast don't agree, especially not now – those working?' Tony asks, looking at the two shiny new coffee machines on a shelf across the room.

'Yes, sir.'

'Great,' Tony murmurs and makes himself a cup of coffee, trying to keep his hands from trembling. They are a bit less shaky when the caffeine kicks in, giving Tony a necessary energy boost. 'I need a shower,' he decides, leaving the empty cup by yesterday's unfinished whiskey.

* * *

Showered and shaved, Tony feels more human, but it takes one of his ridiculously expensive suits to make him feel like Tony Stark. He can't be bothered with elegant shoes, though, since his feet are a bit sore from the little trip; he opts for a pair of brand new high-end sneakers.

'Morning, America,' he greets the Avengers cheerfully when he finally decides he's ready to confront the real world.

After putting on a generous amount of make-up, skillfully enough to make it invisible, he looks pretty good. To anyone but Pepper, that is, but she's already left for Stark Industries.

'We need to swing by S.H.I.E.L.D. do get out bad boy and his toy, right?' he asks, ignoring an array of looks they are giving him. 'Good. You can take your black car,' he adds, pointing his finger at Barton, Romanov and Cap. 'Me and my buddy are riding in something appropriate –'

'I'll just go with everyone else,' Bruce replies. Tony turns around, making his face show theatrical disappointment, but he doesn't protest. Instead, he salutes them and gets into the elevator. 'See you at HQ,' he tells them before the doors close.

JARVIS has one of Tony's favorite cars ready – the dark red Acura –when Tony gets into the garage.

Good that it's a cabriolet. He'll appreciate breathing in some petrol-scented fresh New York air.

* * *

Tony gets to hold the Tesseract when they're saying goodbye to Thor and Loki.

He doesn't look inside the suitcase, even though he really wants, but the sole thought of the amount of destruction it's responsible for makes him feel sick and excited at the same time. The latter is probably inappropriate, but the cube is a wonder of science, an unsolved mystery, a key to knowledge that no one can even imagine. The little boy fascinated with the universe that's inside Tony can't simply ignore it.

Bruce takes the cube out of the case and puts it into a special device S.H.I.E.L.D.'s been working on under Selvig's guidance. It's a simple thing, but Tony can't bring himself to think about the specifics or concentrate on anything but the bright blue color.

Then Thor and Loki are suddenly gone and Tony shakes his head slightly to force himself to go back to reality. He should leave spacing out for later.

Cap shakes his hand and a moment later Bruce gets into the car with his bag. To the airport, Tony knows, just like they agreed earlier. Tony drives automatically, Bruce doesn't talk much, and before they know it they're at La Guardia.

'Remember, my doors are always open to my science buddy,' Tony tells Bruce, pulling him into a short strong hug. 'Or at least call once a month or something, I'd prefer that to visiting third world countries and trying to find you among those billions of people.'

'You mean you didn't put a tracker anywhere in my things?' Bruce jokes, keeping his face serious, and Tony cracks a smile. 'I'll have your invitation in mind,' he adds, grabs his bag and walks away.

Tony stares at Bruce's figure, leaning against his car, until Bruce disappears inside the airport's building.

* * *

'So it's just you and me, in the end,' Rhodey says as soon as Tony gets into the house. 'I got us Chinese,' he adds and frowns a bit. 'You okay? You look – exhausted.'

'You know me, honey pie,' Tony smiles, taking off his tie nervously; his fingers don't want to cooperate much. Rhodey seems to notice that, because he produces a plastic fork out of nowhere and places it next to the disposable chopsticks in a wrapping with the logo of Tony's favorite Chinese place.

They eat in silence, some action movie playing on the TV screen soundlessly – Tony notices that after ten minutes – and when they're finished Rhodey collects the boxes and puts them into the trash.

'What now, Tony?' Rhodey asks, his voice sounding loud in the big empty space.

The sun is shining strongly, reflecting in countless polished surfaces and making Tony wish he didn't left his sunglasses in the car. The suit feels like hundred pounds on Tony's shoulders.

'O-kay,' Rhodey states, not getting any answer. He gets up, gives Tony a long assessing look, and disappears.

He's back five minutes later with a change of clothes.

'Take the suit off, Tony,' he commands, putting the clothes on the chair next to Tony. 'Come on, don't make me unbutton your shirt and tell you to put your hands up.'

Tony glances up at Rhodey's frowning face and does as he's told. The buttons are tricky.

When he's finally wearing an old t-shirt and a pair of track pants, Rhodey puts the suits on an armchair and nods to himself.

'Pepper would kill me if I let you destroy yet another suit,' he half-jokes, looks around again, and pushes the sofa a bit closer to the window wall. 'C'mere,', he says. Tony considers leaving and hiding somewhere, but in the end he joins Rhodey on the sofa.

Rhodey says nothing when a few minutes later Tony puts his head into his friend's lap and he gets why Rhodey bothered to move the sofa: the warm sunrays encompass them both, and make the air smell safe, like summer.

'You can worry tomorrow,' Tony hears Rhodey say in low voice over his head. 'I've got you. Take your time. Rest.'

This time falling asleep is easy.

* * *

**A/N:** Thanks for reading. I hope you enjoyed this little friendship piece :)


End file.
